


Cold is the Absence of Heat

by braingunk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angel True Forms, Caves, Fluff, Knight Sam Winchester, Lucifer (Supernatural)'s True Form, M/M, Not Beta Read, Other, Pre-Slash, Prince Sam Winchester, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-05-09 02:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14707092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braingunk/pseuds/braingunk
Summary: “Don’t go into the caves,” the innkeeper warns him, “you will meet the Devil.” Sam offers him a small smile.(In which Sam is a prince who stumbles upon something old, powerful and surprisingly gentle.)





	Cold is the Absence of Heat

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally inspired by a trip to Aven d'Orgnac (a cave in the south of France) that I went on whilst camping nearby with my family. I was just getting into samifer at the time, so when our tour guide mentioned that locals warned some of the first explorers of the cave “Don’t go into the caves, you will meet the devil”, the line stuck with me and finally got a chance to be written now, two years later. 
> 
> My tumblr is http://tallsadsam.tumblr.com and please feel free to send me a message any time!

A cold wind rushes through a village at the edge of a forest, tugging at the cloak of a man as he stands in the doorway of the inn. The innkeeper, an old man with sharp eyes, watches him closely as he steps out onto the cold street.

“Don’t go into the caves,” the innkeeper warns him, “you will meet the Devil.” The man offers him a small smile.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he says, adjusting the sword at his side. Judging by the intricate designs on the handle, it’s probably worth a fortune. The innkeeper is a smart man, and he’s been around long enough to know what a wealthy man on the run from something looks like. But it’s not in his nature to pry, so he simply watches the man draw his cloak tighter around himself and head towards the stables. The innkeeper closes the door and draws in a breath as the cold wind dissipates. It’s not good weather for travelling. Despite his determination not to, he finds his curiosity gets the better of him and he watches through the window as the man urges his horse into a trot and disappears through the village gates.

Sam urges his horse on, trying to ignore the cold wind. He would have stayed in the village longer, but he’s been gone from the city for almost a fortnight and he knows that Dean will be getting twitchy if he isn’t back soon. As a prince and head of the royal guard, Sam knows his brother would have absolutely no qualms with pulling rank and ordering his men to search for Sam if he was gone for too long. Again. But Sam’s not a kid anymore, so if he takes a week or two to cool off after yet another row with their father, then Dean lets him, so long as he comes back in one piece.

The wind is picking up, Sam realises and curses himself. He’d hoped that he could avoid the storm, but clearly fate has other plans in mind for him. His horse snorts unhappily as Sam nudges at her sides but breaks into a canter - she doesn’t want to be caught out in this weather either. It’s beginning to snow now, and Sam is beginning to panic. They move along the path, Sam squinting to see through the darkening treeline that’s now covered in a faint white haze.

He lets out a noise of triumph when he sees the mouth of a cave breaking through the lines of trees and urges his horse towards it. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than being caught out in a storm. Hoof steps echo noisily as they hit stone, and Sam breathes out a sigh of relief as he dismounts, relishing the way that stone shields them from the bitter wind.

He hums to himself as he pulls his bags and saddle off his horse, who lets out a huff of air. Sam murmurs an apology to her, taking time to pat her neck and stroke her nose as he pulls her bridal off. She’s well trained and wouldn’t go far even if the weather would allow it. He sets up his sleeping rugs on a nearby flat space of rock and then begins setting up a small fire. The whole process doesn’t take long after years of practice, and once it’s done, Sam finds himself twitching, anxious to get up and do something.

His brain supplies him with the idea of exploring to ensure that he wasn’t going to wake up to an angry witch or bear trying to kill him in the night. It seems like as good an idea as any, so he grabs his sword and offers his horse a chunk of carrot before moving towards the dark crevice that seems to lead deeper into the earth.

_ ‘Don’t go into the caves, you will meet the Devil…’  _ The villager’s warning rings in Sam’s head and yeah, he realises that he’s probably tempting fate by actively exploring the cave, but he figures that he’d rather confront anything else that’s down here now whilst he’s awake rather than when he’s sleeping. There’s a quiet sound of stones tumbling over each other as he moves down a slope and around a corner. Sam lets out a gasp as he swings his lantern in front of him. The light illuminates huge stalactites reaching down from a high ceiling and casts flickering shadows across the stone cave walls. The light doesn’t reach the back of the cave, the unlit areas a vast expanse of blackness. An awed smile works its way onto Sam’s face as he slowly spins around, taking in as much of the otherworldly scenery as is possible.

After a long moment, he begins to carefully picks his way towards the wall of the cave to inspect the strange layers of rock that almost look like they’ve dripped into their current shape. He doesn’t get far before there’s a sharp gust of icy wind, blowing through the cave. The lantern’s flame flickers wildly and for that brief moment the walls of the cave almost look like they’re moving.

Then he’s plunged into total darkness. He curses, his voice echoing through the gloom, deeper and deeper into the void surrounding him. It’s only then that he realises that the cold wind hadn’t come from above, hadn’t come from the storm outside. It had come from somewhere below.  

Moments after the thought hits him, a glimmering light like a star rises from somewhere in the depths of the cave. Sam freezes, watching in awe as another light appears beside it, then another, then another. A cluster of lights glowing cold and bright burn in front of him, seeming to grow closer, larger. Reflexively, Sam draws his sword as more and more clusters of the lights begin to appear, larger and closer now. They’re so bright now that for a moment the whole cave is visible as if in the light of a summer’s day. But the lights grow brighter still, until Sam has to shield his eyes to make out anything. The light is blue, red, gold, purple, every colour imaginable, each distinct and yet layered over each other and blending into one. It’s overwhelming and Sam fights to tear his eyes away from it.

A moment later, the lights dim down to a faint glow. Sam blinks rapidly in an attempt to stop his eyes from watering. He rubs them with his sleeve, before finally looking up. Something in his stomach drops as it hits him that the glowing thing in front of him is alive.

Sam feels like his heart has plummeted into his shoes, a feeling that’s not unlike the way he felt the first time he’d looked up at one of the castle’s stone towers from directly below. Because, whatever this thing is, it’s huge. He counts six… Seven… Nine pairs of wings each as big as a house and covered in those glowing lights. They’re all eyes, he realises, hundreds of them, covering this being like freckles along its body and arms and wings. Its head has yet more eyes and too many faces, none of them appearing human. On each side it has the face of an animal, one a ram and the other a serpent. They frame what looks like a living night sky – a dark space filled with glowing eyes and the shimmer of distant stars. Above its head are rings of light and stardust that spin around it as if in some kind of orbit.

It’s both the most beautiful and terrifying thing Sam’s ever seen.

The thing slowly forward. Reflexively, Sam raises his sword; even though he already knows that it would be useless were a creature of this magnitude to attack him. But if he died without putting up some kind of fight, Dean would kill him. Its head dips and its many, _ many _ eyes all fix on Sam.

**“Another human come to disturb me, I see.”** The… voice, for lack of a better word, is a sound like a storm by the sea, all booming thunder and waves crashing into a cliff face. It echoes through his brain like a wave of noise that leaves his ears ringing. It isn’t any language he’s ever known, or even heard before, and Sam has no idea how he can understand it.

“My name is Sam,” he says, his voice sounding so small after the echoing waves of the creature’s own speech. “I didn’t mean to disturb you, I mean you no harm.” As soon as he says it, he winces because there’s no way he could harm this thing even if he tried. Another deep rumble fills the cave, echoing off the walls in a way that makes it seem to come from all directions. For a moment, Sam tenses. But then it dawns on him – the creature is  _ laughing _ at him.

**“You are tiny and mortal,”** It tells him and despite himself, Sam has to pause for a moment. Nobody has called him  _ tiny _ in… Well, he doesn’t even remember.  **“Besides, that metal stick would shatter upon contact with my body.”** It occurs to Sam just how out of his depth he is. He is utterly powerless here, and although this being hasn’t made an attempt to hurt him yet, he really doesn’t want to give it a reason to.

“What I meant to say,” he amends, putting on his most soothing tone of voice, “is that I didn’t come here to fight you. I was riding past and I got caught in a storm. I only came down here to have a look around, not to hit you with a metal stick.” Sam carefully puts his sword back into its sheath, ignoring all the instincts screaming at him to remain armed when faced with a threat like this.

The creature tilts its head to the side, shifting the spinning, glittering disks above its head. The movement causes the shadows in the cave to dance for a dizzying moment, before they settle into their new positions.

**“You can understand me?”** The creature asks. Sam nods slowly.  **“I have not spoken to a human in a very long time. There is something special about you.”** Its huge head dips closer to inspect him, and Sam doesn’t know which face to focus on.

“I’m not special,” he blurts out defensively. “I’m just normal, like everyone else.” The protests are like second nature after a lifetime of facing rumours of curses and demons and magic that had surrounded him since his mother had died in the blaze that had destroyed his nursery.

**“You are special,”** it insists and Sam looks away.  **“But you do not want to be.”** It’s not phrased as a question, so Sam doesn’t answer – he wouldn’t know how to anyway. This is not a conversation he wants to have with anyone, let alone a huge glowing being in the depths of a cave that could probably -  _ definitely _ \- kill him in seconds.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” he says, looking over his shoulder and feeling a sense of relief when he sees that he’s still relatively close to the tunnel he entered the cavern through. “I’ll go. I won’t tell anybody about you being here, I’ll just leave you in peace and won’t ever bother you again.” He slowly begins backing away, feet scuffling over the rocks.

The creature moves quickly; far more quickly than Sam would think something so large could move. Its head jerks upright and one of its arms reaches out a skeletal hand towards him. A large eye in the centre of its palm stares urgently at him as Sam desperately stumbles backwards, heels digging into the gravel and almost making him loose his balance. His breaths come out small and quick as the fear that he’s about to die alone with no closure for his brother hits him-  

A deafening clang erupts from somewhere close by and the creature’s hand is yanked back. It’s only then, with his ears ringing with the crash of metal, that Sam notices the chains. There are dozens of them, dark and gleaming with glowing inscriptions, all wrapped around the creature’s arms, neck and wings, trailing into the deep gloom behind it.

**“Please don’t leave,”** Its voice is quieter now, like the rumble of a distant storm.  **“I apologise if I frightened you, I sometimes forget how intimidating my form can be to something so small.”** Sam watches as it slowly closes its wings and draws in on itself. This huge, impossible creature, Sam realises, is trying to make itself seem less intimidating. For  _ him _ . That makes him pause in his attempt to make a quick exit and take a closer look at the being. It doesn’t seem to have any facial expressions, but there’s something in the droop of its wings and its regal, alien head that makes it look somehow… Sad.

“Alright. I’ll stay,” he says, already thinking about how he should add this to his ever-growing list of bad choices. Any sane person would have run as soon as the creature appeared - or not even come down here in the first place. But then, Sam’s earned a reputation throughout the kingdom for his questionable decision making that he’ll admit isn’t  _ entirely _ unjustified. The creature watches as he carefully sits down on one of the few rocks that isn’t damp, a hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He knows it wouldn’t do him much good if it came down to it, but it gives him some peace of mind. “So, uh, do you have a name?” he asks, breaking the silence. The creature looks thoughtful for a moment.

**“If I tell you, you’ll run away,”** it says, and Sam finds that, somehow, he can sympathise with that. He’d spent too many years meeting people who, when they heard he was a Winchester - a  _ royal _ \- would grow distant and polite and respectful in a way that made his stomach turn. Or worse, they’d realise he was  _ that _ Winchester; that he was the cursed prince whose mother had died in the blaze of fire that had destroyed his nursery. People who discovered that he was  _ Prince Samuel Winchester _ couldn’t get away from him fast enough. Sam bites his lip.

“Okay, why don’t we do a trade? I’ll tell you my name - my full name - if you tell me yours,” Sam offers. The creature blinks it’s many,  _ many _ eyes at him curiously, and then nods in agreement. Sam looks up at it, and he can’t help but wonder what on earth this creature could be. He doesn’t know of any winged creatures of this scale besides dragons - and even then, the creature seems far too large and has far too many eyes. That, and the huge disks of light spinning over its head aren’t like anything he’s ever seen before - they look almost like a halo. Everything clicks into place and Sam goes very still.  _ ‘Don’t go into the caves, you will meet the Devil...’ _

**“My name is Lucifer,”** the creature –  _ angel _ , so clearly an angel now - says. Sam thinks he lets out a slightly panicked sounding ‘oh’, but he’s too busy trying to keep his breathing level that he’s not sure.  _ Lucifer _ is still staring intently at him, studying him with his hundreds of eyes.  **“You have nothing to fear from me. I am not what your books say I am.”**

And maybe Sam’s still afraid, but he can’t help but hear a heart-breaking note of sadness in the angel’s voice. He doesn’t understand how the Devil can have so much angel in him, all light and glory and energy, and be the evil monster he’s meant to be at the same time.  Lucifer’s head tilts, expectantly. He’s waiting, Sam realises, for the human to reveal his name. Or perhaps to run away. Sam forces an uncomfortable smile.

“I’m uh, Prince Samuel Winchester,” he stutters. Suddenly his name doesn’t feel like such a burden when he’s revealing it to  _ Lucifer _ . The angel leans in again, close enough that Sam has to squint slightly to look past the bright gleam of his halo. Sam’s breath hitches as hundreds of eyes study him - either out of fear or awe, he isn’t sure which.

**“Winchester…”** Lucifer murmurs - or at least, rumbles in a way that’s  _ probably _ a murmur. It doesn’t echo around the cavern as much as usual, at least. Sam swallows nervously despite the angel’s promise not to hurt him.  **“Are you a descendant of Cain and Abel Winchester?”** Sam frowns. Of all the responses he could have gotten, that wasn’t one he’d expected. It takes him a moment to realise why the names leave him with a nagging sense of familiarity.

“Uh, yeah, in theory,” he says slowly, recalling the stories that his father’s advisor, Bobby, would tell him and Dean when they were young. “But they’re supposed to be legends.” It then occurs to him that he’s sitting on a rock, talking to the literal Devil, and that perhaps he shouldn’t be so quick to judge what’s fact and what’s fiction. Lucifer nods his head slowly.

**“That explains why you can understand me. I discovered that those from the Winchester bloodline have to ability to understand Enochian when I met Abel. We talked together and shared a bond of sorts - until Cain discovered him speaking to me. He did not like his brother having a bond with** **_the Devil,_ ** **and he since he could not harm me, he decided the best way the break our bond was with a sword through Abel’s chest,”** Lucifer says, the anger in his voice growing hot like a bolt of lightning. The bright glow of his eyes and halo flicker through a multitude of colours Sam doesn’t even know the names of. There’s something wrathful in the angel’s demeanour now that makes any questions about ‘Enochian’ or the brothers die in Sam’s throat. Then Lucifer seems to notice his own anger and recoil from it. His wings droop.  **“I apologise for my temper, Sam. Abel was… very dear to me.”**

The way that Lucifer says his name reminds Sam of ringing glass. It’s a strangely comforting sound. He blinks, pushing the peculiar thought to the side.

“I’m sorry,” he says, not sure what else he could say. He’s not sure what to make of any of this - he’s not even sure why he trusts Lucifer to be telling the truth. Lucifer tilts his head to the side.

**“You don’t need to apologise. You didn’t kill him,”** he says, a note of curiosity in his voice.

“Sorry, it’s just the thing you say to people when they’ve lost someone, I guess,” Sam says, then winces. “Sorry. I keep apologising.” Sam decides to clamp his mouth shut, feeling a little flustered at his sudden inability to speak properly. Then cave is full of Lucifer’s rumbling laughter again. Sam finds his lips twitching, and then he’s chuckling too.

**“It’s so good to be able to speak to someone again,”** Lucifer says once he stops laughing. There’s something wistful in his voice now.  **“I’m sure you’ll have to move on once the storm passes. If you’re anything like Abel, I’m sure that you have lots of princely duties to attend to.”** Sam looks up at Lucifer’s central face, watching the slow swirl of stars and eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll probably have to get back soon or Dean - that’s my brother - will be pissed,” Sam sighs. Lucifer’s whole form seems to grow dimmer, the nostrils of his goat face letting out a quiet huff of air. He doesn’t want Sam to leave, and somehow Sam finds himself not wanting to leave either. Lucifer should be terrifying, but he’s so lonely it’s almost palpable. And though he doesn’t want to admit it, Sam finds it all too easy to empathise with him. “I can come back. If you’d like,” he finds himself saying before he’s even really thought about it. Lucifer’s eyes snap up and he lets out a single note of a song, his voice ringing out like a symbol crash and rejoicing in the way Sam imagines a sunrise would sound. It’s the song of an angel, there’s nothing else it could be. Any lingering doubts Sam has fade, because surely nothing so beautiful could be evil.

**“I would appreciate that,”** Lucifer says.

They talk for hours, until Sam’s back is sore from his armour and sitting perched precariously on a rock. Reluctantly, he excuses himself to check on his horse and sleep. He knows that Lucifer wouldn’t mind him sleeping deeper into the cave, but Sam doesn’t think he could sleep well knowing that hundreds of eyes were fixed on him, no matter how much he feels like he can trust Lucifer.

After rebuilding the fire, Sam curls up in his sleeping rugs. It’s not the ideal place to sleep, but the rock beneath him is relatively smooth and between his sword, the storm and  _ Lucifer _ , he feels safe from anything sneaking up on him in the night, at least. His eyes are just falling closed when he hears the sound of Lucifer’s singing again, even more otherworldly now as it echoes up through the cave. It’s a quiet melody that soothes Sam like a lullaby. He falls into sleep quickly, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Sam doesn’t dream that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I wavered between making Lucifer some kind of monster, a true form angel or even a dragon. What can I say, I have a soft spot for any story that features a fluffy romance between a human and something ‘monstrous’. Eventually I settled on true form!Lucifer because I was little sad at the lack samifer fics I’ve found featuring Lucifer’s true form. I do have hazy ideas for a sequel, although probably not anything soon (maybe in two more years lol).
> 
> Comments are always appreciated and treasured - I literally never delete anything from my inbox, so feel free to comment if you liked it, hated it, or what you had for breakfast today. Thank you so much for reading :)


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